Workshop | Military Pentathlon Jørstadmoen 2025
September 24, 2025
What are your working demands in your position?
How will you achieve these working demands?
Why is this of importance?
(Figure modified from: Billing and Drain 2017; Drain and Reilly 2019)
Figure created with data from Ojanen 2022
Doctoral Thesis
(Figure modified from: Billing and Drain 2017; Drain and Reilly 2019)
There are many stress factors for the modern soldier
Factors affecting soldiers training adaptations and
performance development
- If you had to lead a mission tomorrow, what physical skills/capacities would you most rely on?
Discussion;
“How does your (the cadet) daily physical training reflect these demands?”
If not in particular: How can you implement some of these working demand in your training day?
Coping with the demands
What strategies help you handle this demand effectively?
Can this demand also be seen as an opportunity for your development as a soldier?
To prepare for the demands of military duty and military pentathlon, we need to train smart – not just a lot and hard
Five core training principles can guide this process:
1. Load and adaptation – how the body responds to stress
2. Variation – to prevent stagnation and overload
3. Progression – to ensure continuous improvement
4. Specificity – to match training with performance demands
5. Monitoring and control – to adjust and individualize the plan
Discussion groups;
Which fitness tests do you have in your academy?
Do we have different tests between countries?
Discussion groups;
Why fitness is more that just passing physical training tests?
Elaborate of the idea of “test” fitness vs. “functional” fitness
- Can we predict your functional fitness?
Can you share an experience from your school days/work where the standard physical fitness test did not prepare you for or reflect the actual challenges you encountered?
How would your training look different if your goal was real-world performance instead of just test performance?
Predicting your Field Artillery Loading Task by a maximal strength test (NATO 2019)
\(R^{2}\) = 0.57
57 % of the variation in Field Artillery Loading Performance is explained by isometric pull strength
Figure from NATO (2019)
Test fitness
Functional fitness
Focus: Real-world readiness, occupational task demands
Approach: Train movement patterns (i.e. lift, carry, crawl, sprint)
Outcome: Broad performance and injury resilience
Limitation: Slower progress on specific test scores
Example: Carrying heavy pack uphill - marching
Valid predictions?
To assess an individuals ability to cope with occupational demands
Key Takeaway:
Test fitness = meeting a standard (pass/fail based on a score).
Functional fitness = being ready for the unexpected - occupational demand.
Best approach: Train to exceed test standards while building functional fitness (specificity), and resilience for real-world battlefield performance.
Possible solution/suggestion:
Group task:
Cadets individual task:
Group task:
Training with purpose
Key points:
Importance of physical fitness
Working demands
Can we predict your occupational task performance?
Military pentathlon - a way of training on working demands
Mission-Ready